In the last ten years or so, we got more and more news in the feed about the use of drones in all the major conflict zones. Acronyms like UAV or UCAV became part of our lingo and countless videos on YouTube or Vimeo showed us in full degree what happened in Afghanistan or in Iraq (or in other places) when a Hellfire missile hit its intended target on the ground.

That’s war, nothing else. With more distance put between the operator and the targets, but it’s still the same. Find an enemy, put him six feet under with 18 or 20 livres of high explosives. It’s still a nation against another nation, or a nation against an armed faction in a disputed territory. Technology change but it’s still war as we know it.

But now everybody can buy a small drone, isn’t it? And in many countries it’s not so difficult to get yourself a gun. So, add two and two and you get this.

That’s interesting. A small drone, plus a gun. Then comes into play another little thing, just to raise the stakes.

Now, this is an effected video, with a lot of gasoline added here and there for the show. And both videos may be related to some action video game. For sure, the range of such drones are far less than a Predator and the payload is very little compared to a full-sized UCAV. A pity that if you want to go in for a kill, you don’t need much.

So, the next time you will hear any news drone-related, be a little more focused about where it happens. It may be a lot closer than the Middle East. Defend ourselves from a small drone it’s not so easy. You have to spot it before it fires its weapon, then you have to hit a fast-moving target. It’s a kind of tactical nightmare for anybody, with a focus about how to deal with it in an urban environment.

I think that we will see less political or military leaders in the streets, not so far in the future. You know, bullets are forever.

Related articles

]]>https://angelobenuzzi.wordpress.com/2015/08/01/drone-wars-not-so-far-away/feed/0angelobenuzziLooking for a new planethttps://angelobenuzzi.wordpress.com/2015/07/24/looking-for-a-new-planet/
https://angelobenuzzi.wordpress.com/2015/07/24/looking-for-a-new-planet/#commentsFri, 24 Jul 2015 13:28:39 +0000http://angelobenuzzi.wordpress.com/?p=3185Read more Looking for a new planet]]>

English: Kepler space telescope orbit (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Apparently the world discovered yesterday about the existence of the Kepler project and the social media today are full of news about one of the exoplanets discovered by the scientist that are manning this project… since 2009.

The golden arguments are the similarities between our solar system and Kepler-452’s own. Same kind of star, a planet in the “goldilocks zone“, other planets in the system that are probably the like of Jupiter and Saturn. The message is clear, “another Earth!”, and let there be a million of artist renditions of this newfound planet.

Well, take five. Or ten.

According to NASA, there’s a 50% chance of similar composition of Kepler-452b with our planet. That means that we got a solid 50% choice of a very different world, where life as we know simply cannot exist. It’s the better candidate ever but there are more than 1,000 more planets to check out and many more to be detected.

The hunt for a Earth’s twin is still on and will continue for many years, no matter of how many good candidates we will find. There’s a lot we still don’t know about the formation of solar systems and the set of conditions needed for talking about “a new Earth” is quite hard to be satisfied. So, hold your horses for now.

What we know for sure now is that a number of exoplanets exists. Most of them are gas giants even bigger than Jupiter, a few are similar in size to our beloved Earth, fewer are in the right place to get enough energy from their star to have the choice of liquid water on their surfaces. It’s a lot. But it’s not enough.

Meanwhile, wouldn’t it be nice if somebody starts to pump serious money in the projects related to the Alcubierre concept? Because, you know, once we get the right place it will be a pity to leave it alone…

]]>https://angelobenuzzi.wordpress.com/2015/07/24/looking-for-a-new-planet/feed/2angelobenuzziMoney and Lieshttps://angelobenuzzi.wordpress.com/2015/07/05/money-and-lies/
https://angelobenuzzi.wordpress.com/2015/07/05/money-and-lies/#commentsSun, 05 Jul 2015 16:47:51 +0000http://angelobenuzzi.wordpress.com/?p=3179Read more Money and Lies]]>You have heard of the confrontation running between Greece and EU about economic matters and maybe you’re waiting for the results of today’s referendum to know if a tiny country will refuse or not to find another economic agreement with the so-called “troika” (that’s ECB, EU and IMF).

The best thing of all this noise is about the time dedicated by media on this kind of problems. Maybe, just maybe, more and more people will start to understand to monumental mass of lies that goes around modern-day economics, starting with the money itself.

Do you what was the ratio between money based on real economic factors and money based on financial tricks, back in the ’80s? It was about 1 on 7. That’s a lot, but it was still sustainable. Current ratio could be evaluated about 1 to 20. If you have a twenty note in your hands, just a little bit of it is somewhat related to real life.

Finance is something useful, not a fraud. You will need banks and insurances to run an economy and you will need means to trade, to exchange values over the industrial production and the commercialization of goods and services. But when rules goes out of the window and corporations spin on greed, a border is crossed. The line between a needed service and money-making machine is just around the corner.

Since the ’80s, we have a number of economic crisis. None based on reality. Two generation of “wolves” of Wall Street (and many other places all around the world) generates mountains of virtual cash for themselves and their projects, with very little opposition from elected governments. The basic lie was about taxes. The more money they make, that was the understanding on the media, the more taxes they pay – good for the government. A pity that it was never the truth, just check out how much taxes big corporations pays in your country.

There is a small number of conglomerates that control more than 80% of the trading, pushing the markets in the directions needed when they want to get squeeze more money. They are all multi-national, whose control quote are in the hands of a few thousands people. Nomura, Blackrock, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank of Scotland, Goldman Sachs, UBS, CitiBank… just look at the newspapers, it’s easy to spot their names. Then look at the advisors, the like of Moody’s or Standard and Poor’s. Guess who control them? Better, guess who owns them.

So, if market values are lies and the money we have is based on nothing, what’s our economy about? Are our national debts real? What’s making our civilization go around?

Good luck to our Greek friends. And to all us european within the borders of the Euro zone.

]]>https://angelobenuzzi.wordpress.com/2015/07/05/money-and-lies/feed/0angelobenuzziGet ready for Dark Legacyhttps://angelobenuzzi.wordpress.com/2015/07/01/get-ready-for-dark-legacy/
https://angelobenuzzi.wordpress.com/2015/07/01/get-ready-for-dark-legacy/#commentsWed, 01 Jul 2015 12:00:26 +0000http://angelobenuzzi.wordpress.com/?p=3176Read more Get ready for Dark Legacy]]>Time for a self-promotional post, just to remember to everybody out there that there’s a new e-book incoming, hard and fast like any science fiction story should be.

The third installment of my ongoing series, Ghosts Of War, will hit the digital market July 15th, with the focus of the story about a young spaceminer in the Asteroid Belt and his dangerous journey to go back home.

Dark Legacy deals with the coming of age, with the need to get the most with inadequate equipment and with the long-term consequences of a conflict.

This is the wonderful cover, created by Elena Betti who designed the entire series.

]]>https://angelobenuzzi.wordpress.com/2015/07/01/get-ready-for-dark-legacy/feed/0angelobenuzziGhosts of War_cover 03We Fight Back – The dual nature of the Darknesshttps://angelobenuzzi.wordpress.com/2015/06/27/we-fight-back-the-dual-nature-of-the-darkness/
https://angelobenuzzi.wordpress.com/2015/06/27/we-fight-back-the-dual-nature-of-the-darkness/#commentsSat, 27 Jun 2015 21:40:46 +0000http://angelobenuzzi.wordpress.com/?p=3168Read more We Fight Back – The dual nature of the Darkness]]>This will be a long post. I hope it will be interesting too, because this arguments are the basis for some of my next projects. So, let’s start with the basics; there’s an ongoing conflict between the creatures of our plan (the reality we know) and a number of different creatures that comes from somewhere else (let’s say, other realities or different plans of this reality).

Basically it’s a matter of resources, like any other war we know from our history. The difference is in the nature of such resources, this time is about our bodies and/or our planet. For the sake of a simple way of writing this post down, let’s say that we can attribute the word “Darkness” to the whole of our enemies (this will not mean that humankind is on the right side or that we are in some way enlightened, it’s just a label).

Lightning over Pentagon City in Arlington, Virginia. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Fact #1 – they know how to come here.

A common tract of folklore and narrative is about the knowledge of ways to come in our reality from the other places (dimensions, planets, parallel realities and such) for the creatures of Darkness. This may require active collaboration from our side and/or specific rituals or artifacts, but the concept is clear: they know how to come here and how to go back home. Keep this notion bookmarked, we will use it later.

Fact #2 – they know what they want from us.

All right, this one is easy. The whole reason for the creatures to come here is about us and maybe about our planet. That means that they know for sure that they can live here, feed on us and survive. That speaks volumes about biology, chemistry and physics. Some of them will mate with us and create some form of spawn on our planet, in such cases they should be genetically compatible. So we have common factors between us and them. Bookmark this too.

-> Fact #2.1 – there must be a physical contact.

To feed or to reproduce, they have to be physically here, right? They have to touch us. Or bite, or slash or whatever else. But if they can touch us, we can do the same. No matter how they could be stronger, smarter, faster than any of us. If they can grab one of us, they can be grabbed as well. We have a chance to fight back with all our might when they are on our plan. This is not new, of course. There are countless stories about monster hunters, some even about god hunters. Once again, keep this information aside for a moment.

Fact #3 – they have a dual nature.

If we can assume that the reality that originates the Darkness is different from our own and if we assume that they can feed and survive on both places then we can state that their physical nature should be dual. Maybe to the point of different forms to use on different planes. The logical consequence is that they can shift from one nature to the other with ease or a minimum effort. Otherwise, if they do not change, we can assume that we can go to their plan in the same way they come here.

So, let’s pick up the monster hunter basic scheme and see if we can spice it up a little.

A bit of salt – about weapons.

What if we need “dual” weapons to get down our visitors from the Darkness? I mean, physically dual. Twin spiked spear blades, for instance. Double swords. Something like that.

That was about the past, of course. Modern times gave us better weapons, a number of them twin barreled. This could be a good example.

A bit of pepper – about different weapons.

Now we can recover a bit of information from Fact #2; the similarities based on science (chemistry, biology, physics and genetics) lead to some consideration about unconventional weapons. Could Mustard gas affect a creature from Darkness? What about radiations or poisons?

A bit of chilli – about the level of confrontation.

What about to raise the level of this conflict? Some of them come here, right? So, we can go there and show how much we don’t appreciate their attention. With all the hardware needed for the task. Let’s become a part of their dark folklore for a millennium or two.

A bit of garlic – about the shift of perspective.

What if we gave them a hard lesson or two in the past? That will be about revenge, a plot against the humans that nearly wipe out their kind and/or colonize their dimension. They could have learnt a lot from us, applying all this knowledge against us for a massive payback.

These are just a few “facts” and hypothesis about the aforementioned “Monster Hunter” basic plot. What about yours?

]]>https://angelobenuzzi.wordpress.com/2015/06/27/we-fight-back-the-dual-nature-of-the-darkness/feed/3angelobenuzziMuseo_del_Prado_-_Goya_-_Caprichos_-_No._43_-_El_sueño_de_la_razon_produce_monstruosDualBladeSwordberetta 687Be Self or Be Pro – a false choicehttps://angelobenuzzi.wordpress.com/2015/06/03/be-self-or-be-pro-a-false-choice/
https://angelobenuzzi.wordpress.com/2015/06/03/be-self-or-be-pro-a-false-choice/#commentsWed, 03 Jun 2015 09:00:15 +0000http://angelobenuzzi.wordpress.com/?p=3164Read more Be Self or Be Pro – a false choice]]>

William Caxton showing specimen of his printings to the King

Everything changes but the human mind. This could be a good title for this post and also a way to start thinking a bit about a false debate that’s running under the lines in the social media scene. Since the very start of the self-publishing modern era I’ve read thousands of post and status about how silly was the choice for an author to put himself/herself out in the market alone, away from the organization of the publishing houses. That was the very voice of fear, in my opinion. Fear about a market that was changing, for the first time since the 1800’s.

There’s no real way to stop progress, everybody knows that. But still cultural resistance shows up every now and then, from people who’s afraid of any change. There’s a kind of phobia against e-books that leads to an irrational argument against any form of electronic device made for reading purposes. It’s just curious that this phobia rages on the social media, using computers and smart phones, isn’t it? Similar arguments are made up against self published authors, pointing the finger on the lack of quality and/or about the lower level of professionalism involved. Again, that happens on social media, the same virtual place where authors may find people able to design covers, giving any kind of service and so on.

Then we get the final frontier, the last move against indie authors. The basic idea is to establish that once crossed the line you can never come back. An indie author, they say, could never try to get one of his/her story published thru a publishing house and/or in a magazine. That implies also a rigid choice from the beginning of a writing career. Be in or be out. Once again, this is fear and nothing else. The market is still changing, more and more in the direction of novel/novelette only mode. This kind of change is worrying a lot of writers, maybe because they think that they can’t change.

Please, take a look around. Things will never get back to 1990. It’s the nature of our civilization to change and nobody can stop it.

What day is today? It’s the right day to unleash a new story on the market, to show you the second issue of my ongoing “Ghosts Of War” series.

New issue and the same team. Elena Betti created another wonderful cover, Davide Mana provides insight and editing, it’s up to me to tell you another story.

This one is takes place in the space between Venus orbit plane and Mercury’s own. Here you will two young Indian spacemen, ready to get the choice of their lives while recovering a wartime wreck. But there’s more, of course. Two different warships, engaged in a cat-and-mouse chase. And…

We have ghosts, ready to do whatever it takes to get a grip on the living. And…

We have secrets. Of the worst kind. And…

We have war veterans. People who are not afraid to put everything at stake to accomplish their mission.

In the previous post we focus our attention about the needs for low-gravity and short-distance transports, recovering the “Eagle” concept from the beloved TV serial “Space:1999“. Basically that was a kind of spaceship that we can build even today, using ion engines or chemical engines for propulsion. The limit for such a ship and for everything else we put out in space until now, is that it’s slow. Six months or more to reach Mars, much more to reach the other planets (or bodies) in our Solar system.

A voyage measured in many months or a few years could be acceptable for automated vehicles, such as “Cassini” or “New Horizons“, but it’s absolutely inappropriate when it comes to manned missions. Too much time in space, exposed to radiations and to the damages of zero-gravity, too high the resource level needed to keep alive our astronauts. Looking at the near future, when we will need fast and reliable way to transport people and goods to and from distant bases, we will need another way to power our spaceships.

Basically we have two options on the table. Nuclear-powered propulsion, based on next-generation reactors (that means, fusion reactors) and plasma engines, such as VASIMR.

None of them is at the ready right now. The path to the fusion reactor,although is the key of our future, is still a long road to run. Maybe we will have such a reactor by 2050, that if in the meanwhile we will be able to overcome a lot of technical issues. The ITER project is actually the most advanced in the field, but it’s an experimental reactor – something really different from a feasible power plant.

Plasma engines could be seen as a very interesting reality right now. The concept is in development since the end of the ’70s and the most recent version of the engine, as seen in the Ad Astra VX-200SS, looks good for long-term performance. The output power could be seen as modest, with few hundreds of Watts available, but this output will be very useful for the aforementioned needs of low gravity environments. A small number of VASIMR units will be enough to reduce mission time for almost every spacecraft actually in development, with all the obvious benefits.

So we have three different ways of propulsion to be used for our manned missions. Traditional chemical rockets, to be used to overcome the Earth’s gravity and put our astronauts in LEO, and two different systems to be used in low gravity: ion engines and VASIMR. A few days ago NASA granted ten USD millions to the Ad Astra company, in order to finance their projects. It’s a good omen for the future of this propulsion system but it’s still spare change.

What’s needed it’s a huge investment plan, aimed to multiply our efforts to create a habitat in the Earth-Moons system and to conduct manned missions to Mars and to the Asteroid Belt. We don’t have that much time to waste, nor we have better chances. Ready or not, we have to go.

If you are a long time SF reader and/or a writer in the same genre, you may have dedicated some thought about how we will work and live outside our planet. In the next few years we’re expecting new manned missions to the Moon and to Mars and it’s a given that we have to leave our cradle someday, to expand in our solar system and beyond.

One of the main problems is about transports, of course. Going to the Moon from our planet is quite costly and energy-consuming, that given the need of overcome the gravity and the resistance of our atmosphere. But what about the Moon or Mars (or any other moon or planet accessible in our system)? If we get to drill mines anywhere or to manufacture any kind of goods out planet, how do we get the stuff home?

We will need something reliable and reasonably simple, a workhorse of sort that could be useful for many different tasks. A modular spaceship, easy to build and maintain, with a structure that could be somewhat bonded with a space habitat or with a “ground” base. It should be designed to land and to take-off as a VTOL aircraft, ready to be deployed in unprepared surfaces. Its design should allow to be loaded or unloaded with minimum efforts.

Then a very good TV show came back to my mind. Because this kind of ship has already be imagined there.

Yes, it’s the “Eagle” from Space:1999 show (IMHO, one of the best ever in the SF genre). Take a good look at it. A basic structure; a central, container-like, module that could be easily connected or disconnected from the ship. A four pod system to land, manoeuvre thrusters in all the right places, a small command module that could be easily removed or replaced. The top side could easily be linked with the external hull of a bigger ship or used to grab it with some kind of elevator to be stored inside.

The container-like module is a natural of a variety of specialized purposes, just like it already happens for the ISS modules or for the various payload modules for the Space Shuttle. Imagine a mining settlement on the Moon, there you may have a small fleet of this “Eagle” ships carrying away the products (i.e. pre-processed Helium-3) and taking on site Robonauts or 3D-printers mobile units (or many more things).

In a low-gravity environment (Moon got 1/6 of Earth’s gravity, Mars is about 3/8 of the same) and without any atmospheric drag, you could use low-output engines (low when compared with what’s needed from Earth) a factor that will reduce the need of fuel (and lower the mass total as well). As shown in the aforementioned TV serial such a vehicle could also be remote-controlled (i.e. from a mother ship or from an orbital habitat). Once spaceborne, an “Eagle” could be used to go back and forth from Moon’s low orbit to any of the Lagrange points in the Earth-Moon system or to LEO.

Now, the real question is: when we will finally see such birds on flight?

Zombies as portrayed in the movie Night of the Living Dead (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

All right, I have to admit a simple truth. I’m a fan of the zombies. They are simple, direct to the point and incorruptible in their ways. This is not what you can tell about any other horror characters. More to the point, I’m a fan of the slow zombies, Romero-style. As you know, this sub-genre of narrative has been flooded in the last 25 years and a lot of the books on the subject are quite under the minimum quality level.

Is it difficult to tell you a zombie-based story? If you stick to the canon, I will answer “no”. But what if you take some time to think a bit more about the subject? My starting point is in the works of Max Brooks, who hit the jackpot big time with “World War Z” (if you still doesn’t have read it, go and buy it right now). His basic point is about a virus, named Solanum, as a cause for the zombie’s creation – then he places his zombies in a world far more realistic than most, and let it roll.

So, the basic coordinates are the following.

The zombie can be stopped crushing its skull and/or destroying what’s left of its brain. The zombie is slow and almost unstoppable in its reach for human flesh (more hosts for the virus). The zombies are unable to communicate or coordinate actions between them but all of them are sensible to the call of the only sound they do, a low-frequency moan. They do not see but hear sounds. Zombies are not able to use machinery of any kind or to perform simple actions as turn a doorknob. And the last, precious, bite of information: their bodies slowly decay, until they are useless.

So fighting zombies is about two factors. Moving faster than them, hit them in the head – better if in a silent way.

What if we get to add a bit more of reality?

First off, why get in a fight with them? First phase survivors of zombie plague are most likely scared to death and basically scavengers. They will look for shelter, food, weapons, anything useful. Why wandering around, with the fresh-raised zombies on the hunt night and day? Usually people doesn’t have the skills needed to play a strategy of duck&cover, not to mention the shock of a direct confrontation with monsters.

Second on the list, the need for the loved ones. Everybody got somebody they want to be safe and sound. But find them in a city torn apart could be a real nightmare. Hint: telephones and cellphones will last max three days, electric power will be shut down as soon as maintenance crew will stop working. Our basic infrastructure is very fragile, keep it firmly in mind. Water from the aqueduct will stop flowing in 12/24 hours, gas furniture will be cut off about the same time.

Third, important items are scarce. It’s not only about bullets and guns. Very important substances, like insulin, have to be conserved in a refrigerator. Without power, stuff like this will degrade and became useless. Fresh food will last three days max. Anybody with chronic illnesses will be desperate for his/her prescription in a matter of two weeks, a month tops. Any family with elders or very young children will be facing real crisis even without zombies.

Fourth, the fires. You can be sure that in a town a number of fires will set off in the first days of panic. And nobody will go there to stop it. You can find yourself under a dark cloud (loaded with dangerous stuff) and/or on the run because of nearby fires. How to run away with all your precious possessions if you have to move in a zombie-rich environment?

Fifth, and last; how long could last a zombie before falling apart? Weeks? Months? Brooks theorized years but I find it unacceptable. Three months after being exposed to the virus, I think that a body will start to fall apart. Dried tissues will give way under the stress of weight and/or movement, limiting more and more the zombie’s actions. So, it could be a like a siege. Last one day more of your mindless enemies.